


Carrion My Wayward Son: A Scavenger Romance

by Lilander



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben and Rey are literally vultures, Ben was raised by Snoke the Condor, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Happy Ending, They eat carrion, Ugly Ducking Retelling, Vulturelo, but it's not described in detail, there's only one bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:59:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23882644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilander/pseuds/Lilander
Summary: A misfit California condor and a hungry turkey vulture fight over a carcass and find love.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 20
Kudos: 48
Collections: 9 Squares Reylo Challenge, Reylo Hidden Gems





	Carrion My Wayward Son: A Scavenger Romance

He smells the carcass long before he spots it. Snoke always told him this was wrong, screeching and nipping at his head when he veered off to follow the thread of decay. Condors hunt by sight; this is the way. But his nostrils never fail him, and Snoke isn’t here, and it would be better to eat before the grey clouds dump their rain.

He slips off the thermal and swivels his head over the scrubland, left and right, until the hot wet wind reveals the decay--there, under the lone juniper clinging to a swell in the white rock, a lean meal. It’s abandoned, mostly. The only competition is the haze of flies and a small, weedy vulture who looks like she hasn’t eaten in weeks.

She raises her red head when he lands with a thud, screeching, but he fights her off with a lazy few beats of his wings and turns to the carcass. It’s not much of a find, picked-over, all sinew and big bones that are too much work to crack. Snoke will be disappointed in him, but that’s hardly new.

A screech splits the air, and he’s surrounded by feathers, and just as he raises his head from his meal her beak catches him across the face, gouging the naked skin a feather’s-width from his eye. 

He leaps back, but she doesn’t relent, spreading her still-brownish feathers like a condor twice her size. She just keeps screaming at him, until, dazed and bleeding, he’s forced to retreat out of the shade of the juniper, cawing and scratching at the gash in his face.

Now it’s personal.

A  _ vulture,  _ a lowly turkey vulture, managed to cut him. He hates them more than any other scavenger, even more than the black vultures that maul him in huge groups. Snoke and the others called him a little turkey vulture, made fun of him for his blood-colored head instead of the condor’s majestic golden throat.

He shakes his head to clear it. The wind’s picked up. It sends the juniper roiling and shuddering on the rock. And a sound on the horizon makes his feathers freeze.

Thunder.

It rolls over the next ridge, shaking pebbles loose from their shelter. When he stretches his head up, there it is: the flash that means fire, pain, hopping through the underbrush lost and alone until Snoke’s talons caught in his nestling feathers and swooped him up to safety where he could huddle under massive wings. The first drops of muddy rain fall. They sting the cut on his face.

This is open scrubland; there’s no place for miles to escape the storm except that juniper. No lowly vulture will take it from him.

Mammal bones snap when he screams in for an attack, screeching as loud as he can, flailing his huge wings, scratching out half in rage and half in panic as the rain gets louder and the wind shakes the tree.

They fight for a long time. Thunder rolls, lightning strikes a bolder not far, and he screeches, renewing his attack. She’s smaller than he is, hungry, more desperate--but finally, finally, she gives up.

He breathes hard, relaxing his wings, glaring at her to make sure she doesn’t approach again. The storm rages, and as long as it’s there he can’t even think about eating. So he paces in front of it, head low, scratching the naked rock and darting out to attack when she sneaks closer to grab some of the meat they kicked away during the fight. But he doesn’t dare leave the shadow of the juniper.

She gives up, but she doesn’t leave.

Her claws dig into a crevice in a nearby bolder, and occasionally her wings pump to keep the wind from blowing her away. The rain plasters her feathers until she’s soaked.

Finally, she tucks her head under her wing and huddles, miserable and hungry, in the wind and the rain.

The storm lasts longer than any he remembers, or maybe it just seems that long. He can smell her. But it’s the flinch that does it; lightning splits a pillar of rock not far from their battleground, and her wings stab outward, then her head plunges back under her wing.

She’s afraid, too.

He clicks his beak, annoyed at his own weakness. The sound attracts her attention, and her feathers stiffen when she raises her head just enough to see he’s backed away from the carcass.

She keeps her head low, ready to attack as she creeps closer.

Another flash of lightning, and she dives under the shelter of the tree. He flutters back, nonplussed, and snaps at her.

She snaps back, keeping her distance. Her head shakes, sprinkling him with rain. She’s drenched to the skin, even more ragged and pathetic and starved-looking than he thought.

He caws, softly, and raises his wing.

She picks up a bone and hurls it at him.

Fine.

He turns away, scratching a place for himself near the trunk of the juniper, where the branches are thickest and the ground is dry. 

She clicks at him, and when he raises his wing again, she ducks under it.

It’s good, to be warm. To feel feathers next to yours. Of course has Hux and Phasma and the rest, but he’s never had any luck courting any of the condors. They call him tiny, weak, ugly. Half the time they don’t even let him eat with them. He knows what it’s like to go hungry.

Without disturbing her, he rips off a joint of the carcass. A good one, the best one, with a bit of old meat still clinging to the tendons. When it lands in front of her talons, she peeks out from under his wing, suspicious. He rolls it toward her with his beak, watching with satisfaction as she cracks the bones.

She’s small for a turkey vulture, and alone. That’s a hungry combination; she probably gets chased off most carcasses before she even gets close to soft meat. Did she lose her family? It must have been weeks ago, judging from how hungry she is.

A soft gurgle draws his attention. She’s holding out a piece of flesh, a good piece, and looking at him expectantly. A gift.

Gently, he takes it from her beak, her small curved beak and her red head, so much like his.

They eat their fill. She stays close to her, and he shelters her under his wing, and when he’s done, she peers at him, head tilted, and he stretches his wings in shock when she leans forward to peck a morsel off his face. The cut hurts, a little, but he doesn’t mind.

His stomach is full, and they forget about the storm. For a long time they rest together, and he’s nearly asleep when a familiar smell reaches his nose. She smells it too.

He beats his wings in warning, but it’s too late: a huge shadow descends through the storm, and Snoke’s screech of rage echoes off the nearby boulders and drowns out the thunder. He leaps back, terrified--because Snoke saw. Snoke saw him resting with a common turkey vulture like a mate.

But she doesn’t hesitate. She leaps at Snoke’s head, wings outstretched, only to be thrown backward. He tries to stop her, but it’s too late--she’s injured, shaking her head, jerking her wings.

He loses it. Snoke is alone, and old, and never gave him any food because he was never big enough, never strong enough to please him.

But Snoke is so big. And Snoke knows his weakness: he goes straight for the little vulture.

But she’s not hurt; she slashes him, right across the face. Snoke is stunned enough that he can get in his own attack, and together, the spit and and slash and beat until Snoke, screeching, flies off.

It’s just them, now. 

***

Of course it can’t work. A condor can’t court a vulture. A vulture would never want a condor.

And yet--she wants him. She doesn’t mind his red head. She doesn’t mind the brownish cast his feathers get in the sun. She hunts by smell, like him. She doesn’t think he’s small; she loves how big his wings are, his talons huge compared to hers. And he has to admit that, once you get used to it, the vulture features aren’t so ugly. She’s still a weedy little scavenger--but he likes it.

Still, it couldn’t last.

They’re at a carcass one day, just the two of them, when he smells them: turkey vultures. A lot of them. Cawing and clicking at each other as they slide down from a thermal to land on the hard-packed earth.

He spreads his wings, ready to defend their find. He may be small for a condor, but he’s still huge, and his scream is deep, powerful.

But she leaps past him, beating her wings like mad and screeching with joy. The others return it, clicking and scratching and grooming her in a way that makes him want to claw their eyes out.

No, it couldn’t last.

He turns, leaving the kill, leaving her to her family, and prepares to take off as condors do, running hard down the rocks until he catches the lift of the wind.

But she’s faster than him, and when he takes the air she’s already there, dippling and swooping and spiraling around him until he’s forced to land on the bare top branches of a joshua tree. She lands beside him.

Insistent, she nips at his face, at the scar, and swivels her head toward the frenzy of not-so-ugly red heads, heads like his own. Then she looks back at him.

_ You’re one of us,  _ she seems to say. 

She spreads her wings, and he spreads his, and they have the same markings. 

The feeding vultures screech a call: come back, join us--you’re one of us.

She tilts her head, questioning, and spreads her wings.  _ Come on. _

He stretches his wings, and follows.

**Author's Note:**

> Turkey vultures, you'll be happy to know, mate for life. I'll spare you the other awesome vulture and condor facts I learned for this fic, but they're awesome.
> 
> This was written for the 9 Squares Prompt Challenge started by @cptandor on Twitter. The prompts were "rotten," "grey," "snap," and "family." Trope challenges were "wiping food off the other's face" and "there's only one bed" from Trish (@GloveKinkQueen). I hope you enjoyed it!


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